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How A Nightly Island Conflict Ended Up Becoming A Strange But Memorable Battle
This all took place over the second session of what hopefully will be a long standing
campaign, and I will try not to mention the first session too much, as it is not a story
worth telling, but this session was possibly the best D&D experience I have ever had.
The first session had some important backstory.
The players were in a world that supposedly had no magic and humans were the only race.
It was revealed that one of the PCs had tons of magic, much to the disapproval of everyone
who wanted to play a magic user and was told no, myself included.
Each player received a ring that let them learn one cantrip, except the person who already
had magic.
And we ended up on an island that was seemingly mystical and had extremely few people.
Although the only race was human and no magic classes, we still varied greatly in our ability.
The PCs were as follows: two dex based fighters, Nyla and Malcer -- my character.
A rouge named Clare.
A barbarin called Zimmi, and his boss/friend Andrew who was some sort of homebrew diplomat
class that was useless in a fight but has a +10 to charisma checks.
And finally Willa, the girl who has more lightning magic then she knows what to do with.
I think she was some sort of homebrew version of sorcerer but I am not sure.
All the PCs were about 20-30 years old except Malcer who was 17, and Willa who was 8.
The party was all level one except Willa who made it to level two after the first session.
The session opens with the party finding, or rather being found by, a very powerful
warrior by the name of Tigor, who takes them to the only sort of settlement on this strange
island, Fredrick's Bay.
It was a small town with a little over 100 people and built in an extremely well fortified
area.
There were three factions of people in the town based on:
the people who got shipwrecked there, Pirates,
Imperials, and the last faction, the Followers of the
Red God.
Despite the factions there was still a ruler who had united them all.
He was an old man simply known as the professor, whom the party met immediately upon entering
Fredrick's Bay.
He told them the three major -- and as far as I know, only -- rules of the Island,
No Killing No Stealing
Don't go to the mountain in the center of the island
The party first sought out healing for some pretty bad injuries that they got in the first
session as Willa had no healing magic, and no one in the group had a healer's kit.
At the healer’s place the party gets patched up and there's a red powder that is used to
wake up an unconscious character -- important later.
At some point the group learns that every night the town is attacked by these weak monsters
the locals simply call spawn.
The spawn are sort of like weaker mud mephits.
Because one of the mystical properties about the island is that the people on it don't
need sleep, the townspeople would fight through the night, every night, with relative ease.
The party was not about to miss a good fight, and offered to help protect the town.
Andrew and Zimmi did not wish to join us on the battlefield so we split the party.
Looking back now, we should have forced Willa to go with them, but instead she just sort
of tagged along with Malcer, Nyla, and Clare, who all got out their ranged weapons and set
up atop a watchtower on the perimeter wall.
Several important NPCs joined us in the tower: Brutish, who was the head of the Imperial
factions despite being about 16.
Brutish's bodyguard and loyal friend Tarry and one more soldier named Titus.
Willa was told by every party member there not to use her magic, as magic was not supposed
to exist, and also because she did not seem to have full control over her magic, and we
did not really need the help.
This fight was pretty routine and no one had actually been killed by the spawn in three
years, so we were feeling confident.
When night fell and the spawn ran down from the mountain and into the front line of troops,
the men cut through them easily.
All was going well, and then Willa decided to use her lightning magic on some of the
spawn.
She let loose some lightning that wipes out a few dozen spawn and hurts some of our allies.
Another effect of the island we were unaware of, was that magic was more powerful and a
little unstable.
All the spawn freeze for a second, turn towards Willa, and like a pack of ravenous dogs chasing
after fresh meat, start to run towards us.
All the spawn rushing towards one point of the fairly thin front line, breaks it instantly,
and they begin to dig their claws into the wooden wall and climb up towards the party.
Malcer, Nyla and Clare switch to melee weapons and shields as the spawn begin to rush us
and the battlefield dissolves into a bloody chaos.
Hearing the sudden commotion and the sound of Willa's lightning, Zimmi and Andrew come
running.
Andrew uses his cantrip friends to convince an NPC commander to send more troops to help
us, and Zimmi climbs onto the tower to fight alongside us.
After casting his simple cantrip, a few of the spawn were attracted to the magic and
the defenceless diplomat had to flee the battle.
During the fight at the watchtower, Tarry is pulled over the edge by spawn, and is horribly
wounded.
The rest of the people fight on ferociously.
The battle is bloody and long.
At the end of the battle, Tarry is still alive but dying fast; Malcer, who was also thrown
from the tower later in the battle, moves over to his side.
Brutish rushes off to get a healer but Tarry knows it is of no use.
Tarry asks Malcer to promise to take care of Brutish after he dies, and Malcer agrees.
With the promise made, Tarry releases a pained sigh and dies in Malcer’s arms.
Brutish falls to his knees at Tarry’s side and gently weeps over the body of his friend.
Malcer, numb, walks back up to the tower to check on the rest of the party.
When he arrives, he finds Titus screaming at Willa for causing all this chaos and death.
Only Titus knows that Willa is the origin of the lightning, and he is by himself and
already wounded.
But in his blind rage he is calling for Willa’s blood.
Malcer grabs Titus by the neck and attempts to intimidate him into silence.
Titus does not give in and dares Malcer to kill him.
Malcer, being a lawful neutral character, does not want to kill Titus, so in one swift
daft moment, Malcer hits Titus over the head hard, knocking him out.
Malcer decides to pretend that he is taking the unconscious Titus to the medical tents,
but he is intercepted by another member of the Imperial faction that offers to lend a
hand.
With a new witness, Malcer can’t simply disappear into the forest and talk to Titus
alone in hopes to convince him to keep Willa’s secret.
Or if worse comes to worse… kill him.
Now he actually has to take him to the medical tent and come up with plan b.
They dropped the unconscious Titus on an empty cot in the medical tent and Malcer begins
step one of plan b.
He sneaks into the healer’s house and steals some of the red powder used to wake an unconscious
creature, so he can have his talk with Titus, which he does without getting caught.
However, when he returns to the medical tent, Brutish is there presumably to try and find
out what happened to make the spawn surge the way they did and kill his friend.
Malcer and Brutish talk for a minute, with Malcer pretending that he came looking for
Brutish to tell him about the promise to protect him, but Malcer then notices a bit of red
dust on Brutish's hand.
Brutish, in his quest for finding someone to blame for Tarry’s death, already woke
Titus with the red dust.
Titus told Brutish everything, then passed back out from the concussion that Malcer gave
him.
Brutish is crying for blood and is summoning a council at noon to put the party on trial,
and because Malcer refuses to break the promise he made to Tarry, forcefully stopping Brutish
is out of the question, and Malcer can't do anything to stop the trial.
We haven't had the third session yet but hopefully because we have not directly broken any of
the three rules, except a little thievery of red powder that nobody knows about, and
the fact that Andrew has +10 to diplomacy might just be enough to keep us from being
punished too harshly.
Man…
How did things go so wrong?
I am not sure I agree with limiting what classes people can play due to the DM’s world, but
if the players are on board it could be interesting to see how it plays out.
Please let us know what you think!
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